Several battalion commanders and fighters who were combating in the military operation in Ukraine's east have won seats in the country's parliament

Battalion Azov (archive)

KIEV, October 31. /TASS/. While Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and leaders of parliamentary parties are having consultations to form a coalition in newly elected Verkhovna Rada, battalion commanders and fighters who were combating in a military operation in the country’s east are seeking allies to set up an inter-faction group, if not their own faction.

Candidate for lawmaker from Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front and commander of battalion Azov Andrei Biletsky told reporters that the new Rada planned to create an inter-faction group which will include combatants, law enforcers and volunteers elected lawmakers.

Police noted that Biletsky was a defendant in different criminal cases. In December 2011 he was imprisoned for ethnic strife murder. This fact did not hamper Biletsky to be promoted to the rank of police lieutenant colonel. He plans to raise the issue of Ukraine’s nuclear status in the Rada.

Battalion commanders who are included almost in each political force elected in parliament intend to initiate laws on volunteers and army supplies, form a special committee over the military operation and territorial defense units. Commander of the battalion dubbed peacekeeper Andrei Teteruk who ran for lawmaker on People’s Front election list plans to attend parliamentary plenary meetings with weapons. “I hope I will not use it,” Teteruk said.

Other lawmakers elected from People’s Front will also care for defense capability of the army. Commander of the Donbass battalion and representative of western Ukraine’s Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy’s Samopomich (self-help) Semen Semenchenko will particularly lobby for the bill which will guarantee rights of volunteers and their families.

Commander of punitive battalion Aidar Sergei Melnichuk who was charged in absentia by Russian Investigative Committee on suspicions of masterminding a mortar shelling which killed Russian central television journalists Anton Voloshin and Igor Kornelyuk will represent Oleg Lyashko’s Radical Party in parliament.

It is still unclear how the top candidate on former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party list, pilot Nadezhda Savchenko will be engaged in lawmaking, as the latter is under investigation in Russia on suspicions of involvement in the murder of Russian journalists.